He was elected a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1893 and also spent some time at Cambridge where he edited a weekly periodical.

[2] As a journalist, he distinguished himself by his clearness of vision and vivid style, and was connected successively with the National Observer, The Pall Mall Gazette, and, from 1896, the Daily Mail.

Steevens utilised the articles which appeared in these and other publications in various books, such as Monologues of the Dead (1895), The Land of the Dollar (America) (1897), With the Conquering Turk (1897), With Kitchener to Khartum, chronicling his attachment to British forces during the Mahdist War in the Sudan, The Tragedy of Dreyfus and his posthumous From Cape Town to Ladysmith.

[4] He died of enteric fever (now more commonly known as typhoid) on 15 January 1900, six weeks before the Natal Field Army of Redvers Buller relieved Ladysmith.

Jack London credited Steevens with inventing the cocktail Abu Hamed in the opening paragraph of The Inevitable White Man.